Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
If you wanna stump the Float On boys, you have to try harder than asking about the cost of utilities for a float center in Maine. They tackled this episode prepared and take the rare opportunity to show specific numbers for utility usage at Float On and what that breakdown would look like in Maine, with help from special guest Jake Marty.
Show Resources
FTS Product – Float Center Business Plan
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Hey everybody. He, welcome to the podcast.
Graham: Hey there, it’s Graham.
Ashkahn: And I’m Ashkahn.
Graham: And today’s question is, “thinking about opening a 4 float center in Maine, what can I expect for utility bills? Heat, electric, etc, anything else.”
Ashkahn: All of those other utilities, whatever those may be.
Graham: So before we answer this, questions like this are not necessarily the easiest thing because they depend on a lot of variables like how many floats you’re running, what the cost of electricity and gas is in your area, etc.
Ashkahn: Mostly those, yeah, those are the main variables. But, you know, what type of appliances you have, if your HVAC system is gas or electric. There’s a lot of things that make it so that this not the most kind of, it’s not just super easy, here’s the numbers that you’re going to be expecting to see sort of answers.
Graham: Yeah, for sure. So, we can give you some estimates. To start off we were actually gonna do a little guest call here.
Ashkahn: Yeah, this might be a good time to ring in our old friend Mr. Jake Marty, another one of the owners here at Float On.
Graham: Yeah, let’s see what he has to say about this.
Ashkahn: Let’s see, let’s see if we can get him in on this podcast.
Jake Marty: Hello.
Graham: Hey, you are live on the air with us. We’re just doing some podcasting right now.
Jake Marty: Awesome, that sounds great.
Ashkahn: How’s it going buddy?
Graham: Yeah.
Jake Marty: It’s going pretty well, how are you guys doing?
Ashkahn: Good, good.
Graham: Nice.
Ashkahn: We got a question here, about utilities.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Specifically, thinking about opening a 4 float center in Maine, what can I expect for utility bills? Heat, electric, etc.
Graham: And, so, we thought maybe a good place to start would be, kind of what we run right now in Float On. We also thought you might know those numbers better than we do.
Jake Marty: Yeah, yeah, so I have, no our 2017 numbers, like what we use for water and electricity and stuff like that.
Graham: Hit it.
Jake Marty: In 2017, yeah, no, for sure, obviously water being one of the big things that we use with so many showers and all the stuff we do with filter maintenance, then, of course, adding the tanks, Float On, in 2017, we went through about 385 CCFs, it’s centum cubic feet, it’s a volume of measurement. Which, all that is to say that’s about 30/32 per month, or about 24 thousand gallons of water actually each month, at Float On, on average. Which is kind of a staggering amount of water. Yeah, a lot of showers, right, long showers.
Yeah, Ashkahn always in the shower. Electricity, another one of those big things, since we have to actually power these tanks, and, not only power the tanks, we actually need to power a lot of other stuff, which kind of makes me just want to throw out one little thing here. This is very dependent on what’s actually in your float center. At Float On, we’re using a gas-powered furnace, but we’re using an electric AC split for our cooling capacity. We also have electric water heaters, where those could easily be gas or something like that. And then, of course, the tanks that you pick, it can be very different, the amount of energy that they’re going to draw. Our 6 tanks at Float On, in 2017, we ended up bring in just north of 100 thousand kilowatt hours of usage, I think it actually broke out an average of about 9 thousand kilowatt hours per month. Of course, that’s going to be priced differently per your region and you area, and what your energy costs are.
For natural gas, we ended up using about 300 therms, which is basically a CCF, similar to a centum cubic foot, as far as volume goes, and stuff like that, converting energy to volume and what not. But that was really heavy during the winter, whereas we didn’t really use a lot of gas during the summer, for heating and stuff like that, so it averages out to 300 over 12 months, that’s about 25 therms per month, but big fluctuations where we’re using a lot in the winter and then almost none.
Ashkahn: Our heater is the only thing that’s on gas in our building, right?
Jake Marty: Our heater is gas, we have a 100 thousand BTU furnace.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and there’s nothing else on gas.
Jake Marty: No, that’s the only thing running on gas, our laundry, our dryer and everything like that, that’s all on electric. And any wall heater panels we have, those are electric as well.
Graham: Cool, we were probably running around 1200, 1300 floats a month during this time, just for a comparison there. And there are minimums and different things that go into these too.
Jake Marty: Yeah.
Graham: The calculations, like you were saying Jake, too, of course there is things besides floats that contribute to the costs. So you can’t just really divide that number of floats by your number of floats and take it.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and there’s base amount of electricity and stuff like that. You need to light your lobby, there’s just things that you’re going to be doing no matter how many float tanks you have.
Jake Marty: Plus, there’s things your going to be paying for anyway, like sewer water run-off, storm water drainage, and stuff like that, that’s just going to be automatic costs each month.
Ashkahn: Yeah, and the reason we’re giving these in, kind of, numbers of usage as opposed to the amount of money we’re spending every month is because-
Graham: We like to make you do the work, you know? Why would we do your work for you?
Ashkahn: Because these numbers can fluctuate a lot from place to place. Like the price of water in your area might be decently different. Especially if you’re out in Hawaii or something. Their utilities get especially different from places here.
Jake Marty: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Think of Maine as Hawaii.
Jake Marty: I’ve heard that actually.
Ashkahn: The Hawaii of the northeast.
Jake Marty: I do think it’s a better way to look at it as well. Just because usage, we have a center that’s actually running, and that’s what we’re actually using, as opposed to just costs, yeah they can go all crazy all over the place, so I think it’s a good way to look at it.
Graham: Cool, okay, I think that’s all we had for you.
Jake Marty: Awesome, great.
Graham: Yeah, thanks for answering. Otherwise it would have been really embarrassing when it hit your voicemail.
Jake Marty: Straight to voicemail. No, it’s good to hear from you guys. Have a great day and best of luck with the rest of the podcast.
Graham: Thanks, talk to you soon buddy.
Jake Marty: Yup.
Graham: Alright, so, again Mr. Jake Marty everybody. Whooo
Ashkahn: Big round of applause, please.
Graham: Um, okay and so, that’s our actual usage, so that should give you just a little bit of numbers that you can crunch on your own for figuring out what things might be in your area. And, just to save some time, and hopefully give a slightly more accurate estimate for, specifically, in Maine. We just kind of entered these numbers into the business plan that we have through Float Tank Solutions, which just has a bunch of different variables, if you are not familiar with it, it kind of customizes itself based on the different inputs that you put in.
All of this stuff gets really confusing, first of all, like the actual rates are not one number, if you use below this amount it’s one number, and if you use above another amount it goes to a different number, so I’m kind of trying to take some averages that I could find for Maine in general. And just entered in the cost per kilowatt hour as 16 cents roughly, and the cost for CCF about $19.50 so getting up near twenty dollars per centum cubic foot of water. And what shot out, we crunched a bunch of numbers for Float On over the years and then ran those through a set of equations, so it does a certain assuming that your going to use 1,000 kilowatt hours, for example, every month, regardless of how many floats you run, and then a certain number of kilowatt hours per float, it kind of does these calculations.
If you were running a 4 tank center and your running at maybe like 50/60% capacity, let’s just say around 450/475 floats, the rough numbers you might be looking at. Electric maybe like $750, water $360, gas, depending on the season, maybe between around $50 and $7.
Ashkahn: And assuming that you don’t have gas water heaters and stuff like that.
Graham: Yeah, exactly. And that number would obviously go up. It’s actually a much kind of more affordable long term is having gas water heaters. But it comes with it’s own other issues.
Ashkahn: This is all per month?
Graham: Yup, it’s all per month. And then if we bring that up to more, you’re running at 75/80% capacity, so let’s say 730 floats, or around there, the utility costs rise, but not just totally proportionally. Per month we’re looking at electric maybe $1,000, water/sewer maybe $550, and again gas depends on that seasonality, but maybe between 50 and 75 or 100 for gas. So overall, it’s right around that $1,000 a month range or a little over depending on how many floats your running, is what you’d be looking at.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Again, all in theory, all depending on these rates being set in time as well.
Ashkahn: Definitely a lot of electric. We use a lot of electric for the heaters of the float tanks, for running the pumps and the filtration systems the entire time and just for being open and having a retail space with people in it for those lengths of time, and your laundry. These sorts of things all add up.
Graham: And, yeah, I guess that’s about it, so that’s what we do, that’s what you might expect, and again go crunch some numbers yourself, but I wouldn’t expect them to drift too far from that, right, you’re not gonna be looking at like $2,000 a month utility bills.
Ashkahn: $50,000
Graham: for electric. Or in the $500 range for gas, or anything like that, even with gas water heaters probably. At least for Float On, that seems pretty accurate. If you’re, if we were a slightly smaller center with 4 tanks instead of 6, expecting around a little above that $1,000 mark for utilities feels about right.
Ashkahn: Cool, alright, well if you guys have other questions, especially ones that have us do a bunch of math before we hop on here and answer them.
Graham: Guest calls, life lines.
Ashkahn: Go over to that website, what is it? Floattanksolutions.com/podcast and that’s where you can type in questions.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Are Tankless Water Heaters the Best? – DSP 270
Graham and Jake take on talking about Tankless or “On Demand” water heaters today. They break down a lot of the benefits of them compared to storage water heaters like the fact that they provide a nearly limitless source of hot water, require less energy consumption, etc. They’re not perfect though, and any float center considering one should look closely on how best to implement them. Jake shares some of the pitfalls of them as well as how to maximize their usefulness.
Should Float Centers use Light or Heavy Gauge Studs? – DSP 269
Still no Ashkahn today. He’s taking a couple of post-conference days to himself.
Jake and Graham are on the scene though to answer construction questions, though. Even the straight forward ones, like today. Jake informs us which to choose when doing construction, light or heavy gauge studs when constructing a float center, while getting a little sidetracked when comparing wooden and metal studs.
Construction to Make Your Life Easier – DSP 268
Graham and Jake cover a wide range of construction tips to make running a float center easier. Everything from making sure you have extra storage to installing mop closets with sinks in them for dealing with heavy duty chemicals.
The advice is pretty much a shotgun approach of tips, tricks, and hard lessons learned throughout the years.
Draining Float Tanks into Septic Systems – DSP 267
Graham and Jake tackle the difficulties of draining float tanks and how that process can differ based on different municipalities, different water treatment systems, or whether you’re using a septic system or not.
Water treatment typically involves whole contained ecosystems and highly concentrated epsom salt water can impact that pretty drastically. The guys provide good tips for each type of system and what to be prepared for if you’re operating in a rural area with a septic system.
The Difference Between STC and Decibels – DSP 266
Post-Conference Ashkahn is still out of the recording studio, but fortunately Jake is keeping Graham company in there.
Graham and Jake break down the differences between decibels and STC ratings, two very important to understand when figuring out soundproofing. There’s a lot to digest in this episode, but fortunately the guys keep it easy to understand by providing a broad level overview of the different concepts.
Latest Blog Posts
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #28
Home sweet home! After so many months on the road, it was strange being back here in Portland. We were exhausted, excited, and a little travel weary. The first night back, I slept in my own bed for the first time in three months and the world just melted away.
Having travelled across the United States, I’m reminded of how insular Portland is. We are aggressively fixated on keeping things local. Local beer, ketchup, bikes, pet food, pillows, phone cases… it’s part of our charm. We want to reward people for living here and being a part of the community. It’s so pervasive that, after living here for so long, I kind of forgot that Secret Aardvark hot-sauce isn’t available everywhere, and that most cities don’t even recycle, let alone compost.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #27
Our northern neighbor – a sister city, of sorts – Seattle is the largest metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the land of Microsoft and Kurt Cobain, and the culture here embraces both simultaneously. It’s tech business professional in the front and rock n’ roll grunge in the back. This blend creates a perfect storm of high energy business life and high energy nightlife, making relaxation a valuable commodity. Floating helps fill the void left by nightmarish traffic and overcrowded restaurants.
Given that it’s so close to home, the float centers in Seattle are a lot more familiar to us. Our visits here were more like a high school reunion than they were like the first day of school. During some of our visits, we were picking up conversations right where we left them.
The Float Tour Blog Issue #26
Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, and third largest on the West Coast. It’s a major hub for international trade, with one of the largest ports in the world, giving it a large migrant population, mainly from Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. It’s also been a long-time home to the Canadian film industry, and has even been nicknamed “North Hollywood.” Dozens of film and television productions from major studios film here every year.
Vancouver is very much an international city. It has large boroughs dedicated to varying cultures, including one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. The society here is more receptive to new ideas, always looking for the next big thing; it’s not surprising that floating has blown up in Vancouver as much as it has.
In the last 3 years, 10 float centers have opened up, most of them being larger 4–6 tank centers. The really interesting thing is how they all opened within the same short amount of time about 1 ½ to 2 years ago, within months of each other.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #25
We finally made it back to the West Coast! We went through the Canadian Rockies and were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. We drove through hours and hours of winding mountain roads, fertile valleys, and tiny towns so picturesque they looked like movie sets. It was so captivating, in fact, I suspect Graham and Ashkahn may have secretly replaced themselves with robotic doppelgängers to hike throughout Banff.
This post will focus on the smaller communities in B.C. that are bringing floating to new people every day. We also get to visit Canadian manufacturer Pro Float. They’re relatively new to the scene, just opening up earlier this year – another exciting sign of the growth in the industry.
